Here’s the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem with a great Irish song that you may have heard a piece of on Hugh Hewitt this evening.

I used to do that. Not Irish music, but standing behind mikes with several friends, some of whom were playing guitars, singing for the crowd. Not in a famous way, but it was a good time in my life. Couldn’t do it anymore. My voice is gone.

I’m not sure when or how I got interested in Irish music, but it grew on me, like a potato fungus. I believe my interest in the music is what provoked me to make the narrator of my Viking books an Irishman. It was, I think, one of the few excellent choices I’ve made in my career. Father Ailill brings the novels to life in a way that would be impossible without him.

Having spent so much time “in an Irishman’s skin,” often listening to Irish music while writing, I’ve actually had moments when I found myself thinking reflexively that I was Irish. Which I’m not. Except for the (strong) likelihood that some of my ancestors were Irish slaves brought home to Norway by Vikings.

For you real Irish, have a good day, and

“May those that love us, love us.

And those that love us not, may the Lord turn their hearts.

And if He turn not their hearts, may he turn their ankles,

So we’ll know them by their limping.”

As one without a drop of Irish blood that I know of, let me wish our Irish readers a blessed St. Patrick’s Day.

After all, what was it that made Ireland great?

Vikings, of course.

No need to thank me. Just send a girl who looks like Maureen O’Sullivan.

On planting memorial trees in Ireland: “It’s remembering a life, or an event in a life, that’s the idea,” says Mary Walsh, head guide at Muckross House, where donated trees are easily accessible to visitors. “We get them for births, marriages, but often it’s the memory of a life that’s being acknowledged.”

Walsh says the trees draw a surprising number of Irish Americans. “We get some out of the blue, they want to see the trees.”